Our Top Patent Stories of 2018

We had a busy and exciting year here at Relecura. We are grateful to our client partners and readers of our reports and blog posts, who have kept us on our toes and challenged us to push our boundaries. We have tried to cover more ground this year with our blog posts and IP intelligence reports, studying disruptive technologies, game-changing mergers and acquisitions and companies with interesting portfolios through an IP lens. As we reflect on the year 2018 and on what lies ahead in 2019, we bring to you a compilation of our most popular stories.

The Trend-setters

Earlier this year, Uber settled its lawsuit with Waymo over the trade-secrets related to autonomous vehicle technologies. We assessed Uber’s patent assets and gathered insights into this ride-sharing service pioneer and its innovations which have revolutionized the transportation industry.

Nokia has been in news this year with its patent licensing deals. An IP analysis of the Finnish telecommunications and consumer electronics company revealed that it owns a large number of high quality patents in areas such as GSM, 3G and 4G LTE, many of which are standard-essential. These high-quality patents are the prime reason for its growing licensing revenues. Nokia’s merger with Alcatel-Lucent in 2015 also strengthened the company’s portfolio.

Samsung extended its patent agreement with Nokia this year and has been hitting the headlines with its screen technology patents. The company’s patent publications have witnessed a surge in growth over the last decade. We conducted an in-depth analysis of one of the largest company-owned patent portfolios, with a focus on its fast-growing technology segments in the last six years.

With the changing retail landscape, Walmart has been adapting its strategies to take up the digital and online challenge. The company has been striving to make online shopping seamless and more customer-friendly with its innovative technologies and solutions. We performed an analysis of the patent assets held by Walmart and the key technologies that the company is working on.

The Show-stoppers

Our landscape analysis report on 3D Integrated Circuits (3D IC) showed that Samsung is among the top patent owners for the technology. A 3D IC provides improved performance at a lower cost in terms of power consumption and physical footprint compared to chips manufactured employing conventional two-dimensional processes. The report tells you everything you need to know about the trends related to this emerging microelectronics technology.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is now the umbrella term for a host of technologies powering connected applications. Semiconductor sensors are gaining importance for their use in IoT applications. Semiconductor sensors are known for their higher detection efficiency, better spectrometric resolution, enhanced accuracy and low cost. We brought to you the insights and the key trends related to this sensor technology with our comprehensive landscape report.

Artificial Intelligence has made its way into several applications and technology areas. Speech and voice recognition is a segment which is witnessing a growing use of AI technologies. With voice-control being incorporated into various devices and systems ranging from smart phones, smart televisions and autonomous vehicles to household appliances and educational products, the applications for speech recognition have surged. We did a detailed analysis of the speech recognition technologies and presented the key trends in our report.

Towards the end of 2018, we conducted a patent assessment of the largest tech acquisition of all time – IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat. We analysed the technology assets of both the companies with the focus on how well their portfolios complemented each other. The deal is expected to be closed in early 2019. We will keep you updated on the impact of Red Hat’s acquisition on IBM’s cloud business.